Smell of burnt oil.

I have fixed a lot of issues on my 328 and now I am trying to get to and fix an oil smell. After a drive long enough to have a hot engine, I can feel a burnt oil smell from the front-right location of the engine bay. I guess it comes from oil burnt off the exhaust or something, but there is no smoke and no oil dripping on the floor. I do know my gearbox pan is a little oily and there is some leaks there, but there is no dripping and I don't think the gearbox oil would produce a burnt smell.

Anyway, is there anyone here who has photographs of the exhaust in position at the front bank? I would like to see what it looks like and from where there could be oil dripping on the exhaust. That is my theory at the moment.

 

I found the pictures I needed:
http://www.***.com/forums/pre-99-v8s-gt4/4992-328-engine-removal-2.html

*** = ferrari life

 

Shift shaft leaking? Doesn't take much..

 

I have what I believe is at least one leaky drive shaft seal, which results in gear oil coming out behind the CV flange and being flung about down there. I can tell you that does result in a burning oil smell. Before I cleaned the old, funky, brown spent oil from the gearbox, no leak. Once I put the nice, new, slippery Red Line in there.....leak. It's ok, I'd rather check off the seals when I do the CV and axle service. Here's the job: http://birdmanferrari.com/service/cv_joints/cv_joint.htm

The shift shaft seal can also leak into the boot, causing oil to crawl back along the bottoms of the pans toward the rear.

 

Thanks, I will definitely check the shift shaft seal and also clean-up a bit from below the oil pans. I also have to check the lower blow-by hose and the oil dip stick connections to the front of the engine. Maybe there are leaks from there. Sadly I did not exchange the lower blow-by hose when I had the chance. It was very hard to get to, but I could have done it with some efforts.

I do not think there is a problem with the CV:s since there is no smell from the back of the engine. The smell comes from the right hand side and to the front of the engine.

I did a clean-up of the left hand side below the distributors and on the bell housing. A former owner had a leak from the oil cooler and had to replace it. Apparently, the oil was not cleaned up at that time. Now there is no smell at all from the left hand side of the engine.

 

Oil generally doesn't leak upwards

Start looking from the top & work down - (with the engine cold!) put your hand over the front of the front bank cam cover & see if you can feel any oil there (from a bad cam cover gasket). That can end up on the exhaust (and the alternator & make a mess of that too).
Another one in that area is that there should be an o ring at the top of the dipstick. It may be gone or just perished.

If your engine doesn't have the cam belt backing plates then get a torch & look at the ends of the camshafts behind the pulleys where they come through the oil seals. If one or more of those are wet then you might be looking at Camshaft oil seals.

Aside from the pans the other common leakers are front & rear main seals & the cam drive bearing seals.

The front bank exhaust collects together in front of the engine & then goes down & round underneath the right side of it. There is a heatshield above it that goes under the cam belts & alternator which leaking oil will collect on so if you take the right rear wheel off & then the arch liner out (4 screws & 2 bolts) then you should be able to see what kind of a mess you've got.

 

I agree with this...likely the forward cam cover small leak onto forward exhaust manifold. A small leak will migrate on the block and encounter exhaust stuff; a drip could land directly on manifold heat shield.

BTW, Ian is from UK, so when he says "torch" he means flashlight; so, don't be inspecting with a flame, OK? So, what do they call flashlights in Sweden?

 

Not that it is very important, but...is the car with, or without, cats? The exhaust manifolds are differents; the european cars WITH cats do have the same exhaust manifolds as the US market cars.

Best

 

No, really, I meant an Oxy-acetylene torch !











(disclaimer: no liability accepted for incineration )

 

Little by little, many of you are teaching me to choose words even more carefully....and that is a good thing

 

OK...just don't turn it on its side.

 

I was thinking torch = fire ... and that is not a good idea. Torch in Swedish is "lampa" which is used for all sorts of electrical lights. If you add a variant of the Swedish word "ficka" coming from "pocket in your suit", you get exactly the right word "ficklampa" ... pocket torch.

My car is an -86 model without cat and without abs.

 

One other possibility on that front corner is one of the camseal housing O rings.

The camshaft oil seal is mounted in a circular aluminium housing & that seal seals around the camshaft.

The housing then mounts in the head & is sealed there with a large O ring around the outside of it. It seals between the head & the housing on one side & the cam cover & the housing on the top side.

The O ring itself can leak and it can also leak at the point where it meets the cam cover gasket. There are threads around about how to install these gaskets vis a vis using a small bit of RTV at those junctions.

If the O ring is leaking (and it would be quite hard to detect that it was just that I think) I have read that you can replace it by cutting it & removing the old one & then cutting the new one & feeding it through round the housing (and then locating the join/cut right at the top & gluing it back together) - but I don't thing I'd want to try it myself

Otherwise to replace it you have to take the cam out in order to remove the housing - which would mean taking the AC compressor off and the cambelts etc (now you can see why the shortcut above has been tried!)

 

Ok, thanks. It could be the cam seals but when I had the cam belt covers off when I rebuilt the water pump I could only see dried oil mixed with dust. There was no liquid oil really. I cleaned that up to be able to see if there are any leaks when I pull the covers next time.

 

I'd be looking closely at the cam cover then . If you can feel around down there you'll soon find oil if there is any. Also, if you get under the car & look up with a FLASHLIGHT ( ) you can see pretty much all the way up to the front end of the cam cover (or close to it) through a couple of small gaps. If there is oil up there you should see it.

Just been through exactly this because I had leaks in pretty much exactly the same places - front lower corners of both banks. Both leaking over the gaskets - which were not the OEM.

They are now & my garage floor is dry again

 

Just checked some locations today. Any opinions on these?

- The oil dip stick engages quite good in its sleeve, but I have a feeling it is not as tight as it could be. There is also a thin layer of oil on the outside of the sleeve ... but it feels more like grease. I do not think there is any major leaks through there.

- The cam covers are all dry to the left (at the distributors) and all the way to the right, just before the exhaust cam assembly meets the covers. There I can feel some oily black stuff and possibly small leaks just at the three-way joints. I guess I have to monitor what is coming through there.

Next will be to check below the engine and wipe it clean. Maybe it is simple enough - warm engine - warm oil - smells a bit.